Thank you, thank you, thank you as always for your wonderful reviews—I'm so happy to have gotten over a hundred reviews for this fic so far! Just so you know, my appetite for feedback is insatiable, so please continue your generous contributions (if you've got a minute to hit that green button at the bottom of the page…)

Sorry for my (by now predictable) tardiness—Sunday is always my goal for updates, but it just hasn't happened lately. Like the boulder that Sisyphus was doomed to push up a mountain for all of eternity, homework has really been just a constant joy lately, the word 'joy' being used in the most sarcastic sense of the word. What's freaky is that I know in my heart that my classes now are a lot better than some of the math classes I took in high school—thus Jacob's difficulty with math in this chapter.

This is, at last, another Jacob chapter—I really like Jacob as a narrator, but somehow it took me a long time to come up with this idea. Length is another strange characteristic of my Jacob chapters (all two of them)—somehow, I start with what I think is a pretty straightforward idea, and then I end up with a couple thousand more words than what I thought I'd get. Just one of life's mysteries, I suppose.

One last thing: I like the title of this one, but I can't think of the word "constancy" without thinking of the episode of the Simpsons (the "Mr. Sparkle" episode, as it happens) when Reverend Lovejoy gives a sermon on constancy and puts everyone to sleep. That won't happen with this chapter though! Probably. Hopefully not, assuming this introduction has not done so already—read on and see!

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer is the creator of "Twilight," the following is purely for entertainment purposes, and CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT THERE ARE ONLY 36 MORE DAYS UNTIL "NEW MOON"?

2007: Constancy

Jacob's POV

I'd been sitting on the floor of the Cullens' living for almost two hours, half a dozen worksheets in front of me, before finally giving up in disgust and tossing my algebra book across the room. By far the worst part of having to go back to school (now that, for the time being, there aren't any bloodthirsty vampires around trying to kill us all) is Algebra II. Math didn't used to bother me, but now I see it for the instrument of torture that it really is. And it hasn't helped my self esteem that Nessie, who is, oh, let's see, not even a year old, seems to understand this stuff fine. She won't do my homework though—she says that if she did, I wouldn't learn anything. Right, I'm learning lots right now. I'm learning crap that I'm never going to need to use again after I graduate. I'm learning that Algebra II thoroughly sucks. And I'm learning that vampires are, as a rule, totally unsympathetic to my suffering.

"Aww, did the big book hurt the little doggie's little brain?" Rosalie simpered. She and Alice had just come in the front door carrying about a hundred shopping bags between them; honestly, Emmett should be made a saint just for putting up with Rosalie.

"While you were gone, I went upstairs, opened your closet, and chewed up all your shoes," I said, turning on the TV. I figured I deserved TV if I had to endure three more weeks of school before summer while other people got to have fun. I could hear Jasper and Emmett outside, playing football despite the fact that it was pouring, and Edward, Bella and Nessie had gone hunting together, leaving me alone with homework. Now I was going to have to listen to Alice and Rosalie holding their own private fashion show in Alice's room. At least the TV might sort of drown them out…

In response to my threatening her shoes, Rosalie said something predictably crude and flounced off up the stairs, Alice trailing after her.

"At this rate, you're not going to get your homework done," she called cheerfully. Alice can't see visions when I'm around, but I knew that didn't mean she was wrong in this case. Sighing, I got up to retrieve my book, only to find that Esme had already picked it up.

"Like some help?" she asked. "Come on, I just got done unpacking the groceries. While you do homework, I'll make you something to eat."

I grinned. "Finally, some sympathy. So far, everyone's been ignoring my math-related pain."

"Well, they've all taken Algebra II more times than they care to remember," Esme said, laughing. "If anything, I think they almost envy you the novelty of the experience."

I snorted as I sat down at the kitchen table. "Right, envy me and my math homework. That's not crazy or anything."

Esme laughed again and started making spaghetti sauce from scratch. While she worked, I read questions out loud and, having the scary perfect memory of a vampire, she was able to tell me exactly where I went wrong on a given problem and how I could fix the mistake. Pretty soon, the kitchen smelled delicious too. This didn't help me concentrate, but it was nice—left to ourselves, Billy and I never manage anything much more elaborate than frozen pizza.

An hour later, my homework was actually, amazingly, finished, and I'd eaten something like two pounds of spaghetti drowning in sauce. Leah still gives me grief about it once in a while, but Seth, and even Quil and Embry agree that the more time you spend around the Cullens, the less their smell bothers you. Now I could sit a few feet away from Esme while she looked over my homework and not only not be grossed out by her scent, but actually appreciate the aroma of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.

"Cookies too?" Bella said—she, Edward and Nessie had slipped in the back door with the freaky stealth of bloodsuckers. When I'm not a wolf, it always bothers me that humans have such crappy hearing. "You know you're spoiling him, Esme."

Esme smiled. "And you know that I like to cook. Besides, I wanted to ask Nessie to try something before the three of you went to Charlie's for dinner."

Nessie smiled, but I could tell she wasn't really looking forward to the eating part of the visit to her grandpa's house. "Human food again, grandma?"

"Chocolate chip cookies this time," Esme said. "It's a new recipe, which I think you might like. Here Jacob, I made a separate batch for you."

Curious, I took one of the cookies Esme had removed from the baking sheet and placed on a rack to cool. She was using a spatula, which kind of made me smile—I mean, I guess it was neater that way, but it wasn't like she could get burned if she picked the things up with her bare hands.

Edward chuckled, and I turned to glare at him while I shoved the cookie into my mouth. "Hey, out of my brain, please," I said, but what with the cookie, it came out sounding like gibberish.

"Sorry," Edward said, smiling as Nessie took an experimental bite of her own cookie. Then, to everyone's surprise, except maybe for Esme's, Nessie's face lit up.

"Wow, it's really good!" she said, eating the rest of the cookie and reaching for another.

"One more, and then wait till later," Bella said gently, looking pleasantly surprised. "Esme, what's in those?"

"Blood," Esme said simply. "Only about a cup. I used half blood, half milk."

Edward started laughing, having obviously heard the horrified turn of my thoughts.

Esme turned, and she must have realized that I was contemplating throwing up, because then she said quickly, "Jacob, don't worry. There was a reason I made two batches—yours are the blood-free cookies."

"Oh," I said, relieved that I didn't feel like hurling anymore. "Seriously though, eww."

"What?" Nessie said. "They taste great."

"Says the kind of twisted little kid who just loves the taste of blood," I said, ruffling her hair fondly. Nessie bared her teeth at me, but then she smiled and finished her cookie.

"Are you full?" Bella asked.

"Yup," Nessie said. "I'm ready to go pretend to eat dinner now."

"We'll be back around nine or ten then," Edward said, and then the three of them left again, pausing only so Bella could run upstairs and borrow a hairbrush from Alice—Charlie might wonder why Nessie's hair was full of leaves unless she cleaned up a little first. Chief Swan knows that there's plenty that's weird about his granddaughter, but he tries not to think about it, which I think is a pretty good strategy. It's bad enough that she's growing so fast, which he can't help but notice, but if he knew that she and her parents regularly went running through the woods and drinking blood, he might have a harder time dealing with the whole 'mysterious supernatural creatures' deal we've got going on.

"What's the new house looking like right now?" I asked when they were gone. "Have you added another story since the last time I asked?"

"I think three will be enough," Esme said patiently, though she got a kind of thoughtful look on her face as though the idea of a four story house was something she might want to explore.

"I'm just saying, you should err on the side of too big instead of too small," I said seriously. "Alice's closet alone probably needs a whole floor."

Esme laughed—I was only kind of exaggerating. Honestly, I was sort of ridiculously curious about the new house, but Esme never seemed to get tired of my questions. The way she was designing it, there would be room for all of us under one roof, but there'd also be a number of individual houses built nearby the main Cullen house, so everyone could have their space: Edward, Bella and Nessie would get a house, Rosalie and Emmett would get a house, and Alice and Jasper would get a house. Apparently, I got a house too, which would be big enough for the pack to share if they wanted to visit or even stay long term. My bedroom at Billy's can barely hold my bed, so let's just say I was sort of freaked out when I heard Esme was designing a house for me.

"Well, I'm actually thinking about adding an indoor pool," Esme said thoughtfully. "It's a bit extravagant—"

"What, this house isn't?" I demanded.

"But," Esme said, ignoring me, "we're going to be closer to civilization than we usually are, so I'm anxious to make the inside of the main house as diverting as possible. Here, we can swim in the river, take a run to Canada whenever we want, and do basically whatever we'd like outside, weather permitting, without having to worry about detection. That's not going to be as easy, living so close to Dartmouth."

I didn't comment on the location of the house. None of us were all that eager to move, but it was sort of becoming a safety issue for us to stay in Forks. Carlisle looked too young to be as old as he said he was; Sam's pack, while perfectly friendly on the surface, really wasn't thrilled with the whole 'continued presence of vampires right next door' thing; and much as I didn't want to think about it, Nessie was sort of like a lightning rod for danger. Ever since we'd managed to convince the Volturri not to kill us the year before, Carlisle was fairly certain that the news of the existence of half-immortals was spreading, and not everyone in the world was thrilled about it. Bella and I agreed that much as we didn't like leaving our Dads—regardless of the protection that Sam guaranteed to provide—if we weren't around, they were a lot less likely to even need protection.

Just then, Alice skipped into the room. "I just called Carlisle to let him know to come home early," she said. "I didn't tell you earlier, but Huilen and Nahuel are coming to visit."

I was out of my seat so fast that I think I must have look like I'd been electrocuted. Esme, who's just about the most patient person in the world, actually sighed, exasperated by my (in her opinion) over-the-top reaction. "Jacob…" she said soothingly.

"What the hell is that creep's problem with some advance warning when he decides to just drop by?" I demanded. I really, really, really don't like this Nahuel guy—apparently he's trying to learn more about how half-immortals are different from vampires—at least, that's his excuse for hanging around the Cullens. Right, like he hasn't had a hundred and fifty years to figure himself out. It's not that he just wants to see Nessie. Sure. Oh, and I love having random bloodsuckers just a few miles from my house.

"Maybe the doggie should go outside and mark his territory, just to be safe," Rosalie said, joining us in the kitchen. Oh goody, someone else to watch me have a temper tantrum

"Rose," Esme said warningly. "Jacob, sit down and relax.

"I'll be outside," I said shortly.

Alice smiled apologetically. "Sorry, but I didn't tell you because even though I couldn't actually see you getting upset, I was pretty sure you would."

"Yeah," I muttered irritably. "I'm predictable that way."

I phased as I jumped off the front porch, thus destroying yet another t-shirt and pair of jeans, but oh well. At least it had stopped raining. I was too keyed-up to wait to change—I know they saved our necks last year, I know the Cullens consider them friends, but I'm a lot more comfortable meeting Nahuel when I know that I can rip him in half with my teeth, if necessary. Huilen I don't have a problem with, and yeah, I've been told that this is insanely hypocritical, in the sense that she's the bloodsucker, and Nahuel doesn't even need to drink blood really, but I don't really care. Esme insists that he's "very nice,", and that when he and his aunt visit, we should all try to make them feel at home, but I could not be less interested in rolling out the welcome mat every time these weirdoes decide to stop in.

Seriously, who the hell comes all the way to Forks from anywhere without calling in advance? I guess Huilen and Nahuel are nomads, so they travel around a lot, and it's not like they have a cell phone—but seriously, finding a pay phone and making a call isn't all that tricky. If I wanted to be paranoid, I'd wonder if these sudden visits weren't a way of testing the waters, seeing if they can get around Alice's visions, which wouldn't exactly be hard with me hanging around all the time…

I'd been pacing around the edges of the yard for a few minutes, staring out at the woods surrounding the house, when Carlisle's car appeared at the end of the drive. I'd heard him coming from a few miles away, but since I was listening for the sound of the car and nothing else, I almost didn't hear Emmett in time. Right before he would have tackled me, I leapt to the side and then turned around just in time to smack head first into Jasper. At least he wasn't trying to attack me—if he were, I would have split my head open. As it was, I sort of stumbled backwards and sat down; running into a vampire is a lot like running into a wall.

"Sorry," Jasper said, brandishing their football at me. "Wanna play?"

"Yeah, get Seth out here and we'll play fetch with you guys!" Emmett said, laughing. Somehow, the dog jokes don't bug me when they're coming from Emmett, but with him, you get the feeling he's just being funny, as opposed to with Rosalie, who you feel's just being a bitch.

I shook my head and nodded at Carlisle's car, which was finally in sight.

"Company must be coming," Jasper murmured, looking amused. He could probably guess from Carlisle's feelings of pleased anticipation and my barely contained irritation what was going on.

Emmett grinned. "Oh yeah? Well, we'll be sure to watch how you welcome our visitors, Jake."

I bared my teeth in response, but we all knew I wasn't really going to do anything; Carlisle and Esme have a fairly strict "no biting guests" rule. Emmett and Jasper joined Rose, Alice and Esme on the porch just as Carlisle came around from the back of the house, having left his car in the garage. I trotted toward him, expecting a lecture about manners, but then an unpleasantly familiar smell hit my nose and I whipped around, snarling.

"Jacob," Carlisle said quietly, appearing beside me with annoyingly inhuman speed. "You don't want me to start telling you to 'heel,' do you?"

I growled at him, which made Dr. Fang smile, and then I forced myself to shut the hell up and stop showing my teeth as Huilen and Nahuel stepped into the Cullens' front yard.

"Carlisle," Huilen said, glancing at me. "It's good to see you again."

"And you, Huilen, Nahuel," Carlisle said. "We'd been wondering when you might visit again."

"It's taking longer than we expected to adjust to this new diet," Huilen said, now looking at her nephew, who was glaring at me. Yeah, the guy who could eat human food, but preferred the taste of blood was glaring at me, like I was the freak here. Somehow though, it was sort of satisfying to know that he hated my guts too. If my dislike of Nahuel was as irrational as I'd been told, then at least the feeling was mutual.

"Well, we're happy to help you in any way we can on that account," Carlisle said easily. "The two of you are welcome to stay as long as you like."

Huilen nodded, then looked at me again. I heard Carlisle sigh very quietly beside me, and I couldn't resist shooting Nahuel my best wolfy smile, which involves lots of teeth and pretty much nothing else. A part of me, a very small part of me, felt sort of guilty making Carlisle look like a bad host; I mean, if you say someone's welcome to stay, fine, how nice, but if you say that same thing while there's a giant wolf standing next to you, it sort of sends a mixed message.

This is something else about my hanging out with the Cullens that just drives Leah nuts: she says that I'm just a glorified guard dog to them, but it's not like they've ever told me to do any guarding. Carlisle has yet to tell me to do anything but ease up a little when a strange vampire comes to visit, which I understand, but I still like my way of greeting guests. I like the Cullens, as a rule (Rosalie being the biggest exception), and I especially like Carlisle and Esme. This is their house, and though it doesn't seem to bother them very much, it bothers me that other vampires just kind of show up unannounced. So I like to say hi to visitors after I've phased. And hey, I'd be lying if I didn't say that the looks you sometimes get on a vampire's face when they see me aren't priceless. Standing next to Carlisle now, I was like a big furry sign reading "do not mess with this family."

"Why don't the two of you head inside?" Carlisle said, his tone friendly enough to offset my rather large presence. "I'll join you in just a moment."

Huilen took one more long look at me and then nodded. "Of course."

Nahuel still didn't say anything, which I thought was nice of him. As soon as they were on the porch, Carlisle spoke.

"Esme put another set of clothes in the plastic box behind the garage, if you'd like to phase," he offered.

I nodded—I guess we were going to talk about this later—and then I went off to find the clothes. When I was human again, I opened the box Carlisle had described and shook my head; these looked like normal clothes, shorts and a t-shirt, but I was pretty sure that they'd cost more than I wanted to think about. It felt weird when I considered all the money that (usually Esme) spent buying me clothes and food—and when am I ever going to be able to pay them back?

After I pulled on the shorts, I examined the label on the t-shirt—yup, designer. Honestly, if I was just going to destroy it in a week anyway, what was wrong with shopping at Wal-Mart?

"Jealous of Nahuel, Jacob?" Carlisle said quietly. I jumped, then cursed when I smacked my head on a low branch. Carlisle was standing far enough away to give me privacy, but yikes, I'd had no idea he was there.

"Human hearing really sucks," I muttered. "And why the hell would I be jealous? Just because they're both half-immortal doesn't mean anything. He's like a hundred fifty-some years older than her anyway."

"Jacob, I'm about two hundred and fifty years older than Esme," Carlisle said, sounding amused.

Whoa. Damn. Yeah, he was... "Right…sorry."

"Putting aside the fact that you have no reason to be jealous—"
"Yet," I said grimly. According to the jerk himself, Nessie was only going to be a kid for another six years or so.

"—it happens to the best of us, but growling at Nahuel isn't going to make him go away. For my part, I think it might be better if you tried to get to know him. Nessie's going to want to too someday, you know. She already wants to know more about what she is."

Hmm. That actually made sense, much as I hated to admit it. I'd pulled my t-shirt on by this point, and now I was tying my shoes. "…fine," I said finally. "I'll come inside, I'll eat some more cookies, I'll sit in the same room with him, and I won't even try to rip his head off. Satisfied, doc?"

"Perfectly," Carlisle said dryly. We were both quiet for a moment while I dawdled with my shoes. I really didn't want to be anywhere near Nahuel; six years seemed like a long time now, but I felt like it was going to pass practically before I knew it. When she was grown up, how was Nessie going to feel about me? About him?

"You know, before Esme and I were married, she and Edward and I lived in Michigan briefly," Carlisle offered suddenly. "While we were there, a nomad I hadn't seen in years named Richard came to visit us. He didn't have a mate, though that thought didn't occur to me until he shook Esme's hand. The second he touched her, and smiled at her, I wanted to tear him limb from limb."

I laughed, too surprised to maintain my bad mood for the moment. "You almost ripped someone apart? Seriously?"

"I seriously considered it for all of a second," Carlisle said, chuckling. "But then I remembered that Richard and I were friends, that he'd only been polite, and I briefly worried that I'd completely lost my mind. Of course, Edward found the incident more amusing than anything else—it confirmed a suspicion he'd long entertained about the true nature of my feelings for Esme."

Okay, so knowing that even Dr. Fang could lose his cool was comforting. "All right. The next time I have the urge to tear your guest in half, I'll try to follow your good example, Carlisle."

He chuckled. "I'll see you inside, Jacob."

I waited a couple more minutes, and then I went back in the house. I even went into the dining room to sit with everyone, though I realized immediately that they were discussing the difficulty of resisting the urge to drink human blood—yuck. As I took the last empty chair, I tried to ignore the fact that everyone was staring at me; Nahuel looked as pissy as ever (no surprise—sorry for crashing the bloodsuckers-only meeting, you creep), Huilen just looked surprised, and Emmett and Alice both seemed to be trying not to laugh. Rose was smirking too—I guess my face probably was pretty entertaining—I'm basically used to the smell of the Cullens, but Huilen and Nahuel smelled bad, and I wasn't doing anything to disguise my expression of disgust. Seriously, after eating so recently, it was really unpleasant to be so close to these two.

Carlisle and Esme alone were trying to look encouraging, though when Esme smiled at me, she bit her lip like she couldn't decide whether to scold me or laugh at my grossed-out expression. Despite the sickening smell of strange vampire, I eventually managed to relax a little. Leaning back in my chair, I noticed that Carlisle and Esme were holding hands under the table. That made me smile genuinely for the first time since Alice had announced our visitors. It was good to know, no matter where we lived or how much time passed, that Dr. Fang and Esme would be around to help me when I needed help, to give me a place to live where there was plenty to eat and plenty of vampires to bicker with; and to keep me from killing people (or bloodsuckers) when I went temporarily insane with (okay, I'll admit it) jealousy. If nothing else, I can rely on these two, and I think I'll always feel that way…even if I do slip up someday and tear Nahuel's head off. They'll probably forgive me. Eventually.